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I have a question about verified members. Are they professionals who are/were involved in a specific case or can they also be just a professional in a general sense as in a doctor or a police officer?

I only ask because I am a funeral director and while I have never been personally involved with the cases discussed here, there were a number of threads I contributed to and gave commentary based on my profession. I was just wondering. Thanks!

I have a question about verified members. Are they professionals who are/were involved in a specific case or can they also be just a professional in a general sense as in a doctor or a police officer?

I only ask because I am a funeral director and while I have never been personally involved with the cases discussed here, there were a number of threads I contributed to and gave commentary based on my profession. I was just wondering. Thanks!

You can become a (general) "verified expert" in your field. More info here:

There are so many I don't know where to begin. I like the early John Douglas, Robert Ressler, Ann Burgess, Mark Olshaker books (i.e., Mind Hunter, Crime Classification Manual); Ann Rule's The Stranger Beside Me is a good one about Ted Bundy. There are a zillion others that I can't recall right now.

The Crime Classification Manual, by John Douglas, et al, which attempts to model itself after the DSM. The up side of this book, is that it winnows out the differences between, say serial killers, spree killers, mass killers, as well as various motivations for killing, such as mission killing, etcetera.

While I am new to this site, I am not new to the world of serial killing. I first have to caution on older books by Douglas and Olshaker, and would only read Douglas's most recent or they all tend to get repetitive, and are outdated. Initially, as Douglas was on the front line of developing "profiling," the information *was* new and seemingly factual, but as we learn more, it is an ever evolving field. Also, the DSM changes regularly and doesn't have a full grasp even today on where and how serial killing, spree, &c. fit in their causes, motivations, let alone a diagnosis.

Although still not perfect, a good overview can be found in Scott Bonn's book "Why We Love Serial Killers," though it ranks low in Goodreads, it seems to be one of the most up to date definitionally and has insight into the most prolific serial killings to date- solved and unsolved.

There are many books out there that are interesting, but I also recommend everything be taken with a grain of salt. Even serial killers who have been interviewed likely lie so there is still fiction in nonfiction stories on specific killers.

But have fun, learn what you can, and each time a new crime is solved, we learn a little more.

Im a new member just registered, anyone who knows me well knows I'm obsessed with true crime shows and networks (A&E, IF, OXY, etc). I find it interesting on how Criminal profiles, detectives, police, and FBI handle cases. I just finished watching The Killing Season. It's alarming the numbers that are being reported they believe over 200 are currently active and over thousands are their victims and that's conservative numbers. It's also discussed how the fbi have a database called The Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) is a unit of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation responsible for the analysis of serial violent and sexual crimes, organizationally situated within the Critical Incident Response Group's (CIRG) National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC). However over 17000 law enforcement agencies in the U.S. are not mandated to use this program hence the inability to detect connection, motives, murderers, similar Mos, etc. I don't understand how this isn't mandatory. Former fbi members are saying that it isn't that effective due to the lack of mandate. Why isn't this information required to take criminals off the streets. Why aren't we taking this seriously to prevent more victims and why aren't we catching more criminals. I think their needs to mandates and federal regulations on how things need to be discussed with the public, with the families, and other law enforcement agencies. Does anyone know of anyone in a government role is pushing to make the use of uploading information to VICAP mandatory? Seems this would be a good place to start....